Nematode may trick birds with berry-bellied ants

Comparison of normal worker ants (top) and ants infected with a nematode. When the ant Cephalotes atratus is infected with a parasitic nematode, its normally black abdomen turns red, resembling the many red berries in the tropical forest canopy. According to researchers, this is a strategy concocted by nematodes to entice birds to eat the normally unpalatable ant and spread the parasite in their droppings. (Credit: Steve Yanoviak/University of Arkansas)

Timeline, 2008: Host-parasite relationships can be some of the most interesting studies in biology. In some cases, a parasite requires more than one host to complete its life cycle, undergoing early development in one host, adult existence in another host, and egg-laying in still another. There’s the hairworm that turns grasshoppers into zombies as part of its life cycle, and the toxoplasma parasite, which may alter the behavior of humans and animals alike. Often, the infection ends with the host engaging in life-threatening behaviors that lead the parasite to the next step in the cycle.

A recent discovery of a most unusual host-parasite relationship, however, results in changes not only in host behavior but also in host appearance. The infected host, an ant living in the forest canopy in Panama and Peru, actually takes on the look of a luscious, ripe fruit.

Berry-butted ants

Researchers had traveled to the Peruvian forest on a quest to learn more about the airborne acrobatics of these ants, Cephalotes atratus. This ant is a true entomological artist, adjusting itself in midair if knocked from its perch. Re-orienting its body, it can glide back to the tree trunk, grabbing on and climbing to where it belongs, avoiding the dangers of the forest floor.

As the investigators monitored the colony, they became aware of some odd-looking members of the group. These ants had large red abdomens that shimmered and glowed and looked for all the world like one of the tropical berries dotting the forest around them. Curious about these odd ants, the scientists took some to the lab for further investigation. Ant researchers are an obsessive breed, and they had even placed a bet over whether or not these berry-bellied ants were a new species.

A belly full of another species’ eggs

When they sliced open one of the bellies under a microscope, what they found surprised them. Inside, a female nematode had packed the ant’s abdomen full of her eggs. The bright red belly was an incubator and, the researchers surmised, a way station on the nematode’s route to the next step in its life cycle. This was the same old C. atratus with a brand new look.

Tropical birds would normally ignore these ants, which are black, bitter, and well defended with a tough, crunchy armor. But any tropical bird would go for a bright, red, beautiful berry just waiting to be plucked. The scientists found that in addition to triggering changes to make the ant belly look like a berry, the nematode also, in the time-honored manner of parasites, altered its host’s behavior: the berry-bellied ants, perched on their trees, would hold their burgeoning abdomens aloft, a typical sign of alarm in ants. A bird would easily be tricked into thinking that the bug was a berry. One quick snap, and that belly full of nematode eggs would be inside the belly of a bird.

Poop: A life cycle completed

And then the eggs would exit the bird the usual way, ending up in the bird’s feces. The ants enter the picture again, this time collecting the feces and their contents as food for their colony’s larvae. The eggs hatch in the larvae and the new nematodes make their way to the ant belly to start the cycle anew.

The nematode itself is a new find, a new species dubbed Myrmeconema neotropicum. And it seems that earlier discoverers of the berry-bellied ants also thought they had a new species on their hands: the researchers turned up a few previous berry-bellied specimens in museums and other collections labeled with new species names. No one had thought that the difference in appearance might be the result of a parasitic infection: this relationship is the first known example of a parasite causing its host to mimic a fruit.

Birds remain the missing link

There is one hitch to the newly discovered nematode-ant-bird association: the researchers never actually saw a tropical bird snap up a juicy, fruit-mimicking ant. They report seeing different species of birds scan the bushes where such ants sheltered, but there were never any witnessed ant consumptions. Thus, this inferred piece of the puzzle—the involvement of birds and their droppings in the life cycle of this nematode—remains to be proven.